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Monday, December 22, 2008

I was talking to my friend Liz when the subject of interdependence came up. My feelings on the subject are strong enough, they surprise me when I remember them. They're certainly strong enough to share more widely. {smile}

In my experience, interdependence is absolutely terrifying if I let myself think about it. I am relying on others to support me... and sooner or later they will let me down. It's not a question of whether they'll let me down. They will. No matter how much they want to avoid doing so, they will sooner or later. When they do, I will get hurt. All I can do then is trust in my own ability to heal... if not perfectly, then well enough to carry on. {smile}

{pause}

It's worth it. I can't doubt that. I tried independence when I was younger... boy, that was a bleak and empty time! {rueful smile}

Interdependence may be scary and painful, but it fills my life with the family members and dear friends who make life worth living. Yes, there's pain and fear this way, but there's also joy and love in measures independence could never, ever provide. {WARM SMILE, BIG WARM SMILE}

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Sorry to fall quiet again just when I wanted to do better. {worn smile}

I didn't mention one problem in my last post. I didn't think it was big enough. Dad was on his third day of some quite itchy hives. However, he'd stopped the lettuce that he suspects was chopped by the same equipment that chops spinach. (Yes, he's that allergic to spinach!) Plus he was seeing the doctor in a couple of days about them. So he didn't anticipate much more trouble from them.

He had a lot more trouble anyway. He and his doctor must have tried half a dozen antihistamines on the things. The hives finally faded late last week. {SIGH} The doctor suspects spinach juice in the lettuce too. Apparently once hives get going, they can perpetuate themselves for up to a year. Three weeks... is more than bad enough. {sigh}

At least he seems to be over them now. Also, he doesn't need the elastic bandage on his knee anymore. A taped-on pad is good enough now. {Smile} So Dad's feeling better, tho he's frustrated with how quickly he tires.

I'm feeling much relieved, myself. It's taking a while for life to get back to normal, but it's gradually getting there. {Smile}

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Dad saw the doctor again. He still should keep his leg up, but he does not have to go back. Also, he may now drive. {pause, sigh}

Thank god. Now maybe life can begin to return to normal. {pause} I hate to complain when Dad has been hurting, and Mom busy keeping everything going, but this pretty totally wrecked what little off-line social life I have. It got bad enough, it was hard not to withdraw online as well. (I do hate when that happens.) I don't think I entirely avoided doing that. {small smile}

Monday, November 3, 2008

Yes, Dad saw the doctor early this afternoon. The doctor took a look at the knee, and promptly numbed it up. Then he took out a great big clot. He did not close it up; he wants it to be able to drain if necessary. Apparently the knee has been hurting so much this weekend because it has been continuing to hemorrhage very slowly this weekend.

Anyway, the doctor put on a pressure bandage. He will look at the knee again Thursday afternoon. Dad is resting in his bedroom now. It hurts, but the pressure that he felt isn't there. He's counting that in improvement. {worn smile} What I count as an improvement is the relief I see when I look at Dad. He was pretty tense yesterday, and that's gone. I hope we're past the worst now. {another worn smile}

Friday, October 31, 2008

Early this month, the bees were gone from the woodpile. So were over half the termites. So was two thirds of the wood. A couple of days ago, the rest of the termites and most of the rest of the wood followed them. No, we haven't had any bonfires. Dad faced up to reality, and asked our yardman to haul the wood to the dump in his truck. Dad insisted on paying twenty bucks for gas per trip. {smile} The only wood left now is a few old mamani logs. They aren't going to the dump. They seem to be insect free, so the yardman wants them for his woodcarving. Dad's happy to do it. He's {Smile}

Dad fell down in church last Sunday. He saw the doctor Monday, because the left knee was really swollen. He has a hematoma there. It probably needs surgery. Due to a severe doctor shortage in Hawai'i, the surgeon can't see him until Monday. He saw his main doctor again today (Friday), and complained about all the pain. He's been laid up all week. His doctor sent him to a semi-retired orthopedist who doesn't do surgery any more. He was able to remove an ounce of fluid, but the rest of the swelling is a big clot that will have to be removed surgically. Dad's in marginally less pain now. At this point we're hoping that when he finally sees the surgeon on Monday, the fellow won't insist on waiting another week or two to operate. {disgusted look}

I keep praying for Dad. Unfortunately, my prayers have yet to be answered the way I'd like. {small smile}

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I've been thinking about church. There's something... I'm not comfortable there, and I really should be. I've been there all my life. {pause}

I think I need a change. Not a major one, but... I feel restless.

I'm toying with becoming a deacon. the Diaconate has fascinated me since I learned that some deacons never become priests. {pause} I'm not sure it's right for me, tho. I'd have some trouble reading the gospel without falling over, more getting to the pulpit to take a turn at preaching, and yet more trying to get up to the altar to assist the priest in the Eucharist. {pause} I know there's much more to being a deacon than helping in the service. They study the bible in depth, and reach out to the community in various ways. However, do I need to be ordained for that? Some form of lay ministry may suit my abilities and my congregation's needs better. I really don't think they need to add ramps all over the sanctuary so I can get around. {Smile}

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Well, my computer seems to be behaving itself since it realized it does have a keyboard after all. {Smile}

That's not the good news of the title. {bite lips} I've been trying to figure out how to tell you without sounding like I'm bragging. After about three weeks, I give up. So here goes. {smile}

A few weeks ago, I got three volumes collectively titled Storytelling: An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore. {pause} In the middle volume are four short articles I wrote myself about gods and creatures popular in Hawaiian legends. (Pele, her sister Hi'iaka, Maui, and the Menehune, if you're curious.) {Smile, pause}

The encyclopedia was edited by Josepha Sherman, and she did a great job on it. The articles are both well-written and well-chosen. {Smile} I don't say that because my articles are in it; I was taught how to evaluate an encyclopedia in library school, and this one passes the tests. {Smile} That isn't easy to pull off either; a lot of encyclopedias have problems.

Dad says this makes me a published author. {bite lips} I guess it does, but I know too many published authors not to realize it's only one step on a long road. I'd like to follow up with something else sometime, but at least I've made a start. {Smile}

Friday, September 12, 2008

Yesterday afternoon (Thursday), Dad announced that the Computer Store had called. My computer was already fixed. We could go pick it up any time. So we went down pretty quickly. {smile} We picked it up. The gal who fixed it said the only problem that she could find was the modem was switched off. She turned it back on, and all seemed fine. She said this could be a virus, so I should watch it for more trouble, but she really thought it was fixed.

So we loaded it up and took it home. Dad set it up as quickly as feasible. I turned it on, and checked my email to make sure it was working. My email downloaded fine. {smile}

Then I shut it down so I could tag along while Dad got groceries. KTA, the supermarket he was going to, has picnic tables out front, on a wide, shaded patio. I like to sit at them and think and write. It's a change of scenery, and a pleasant arrangement. {Smile}

Then we went back home. After a while, I turned on my computer again. As I began to log into my usual sites (LJ and Blogger), my computer stopped responding to my keyboard. {bite lips} No matter how many buttons, I pushed, nothing. I figured out which cable connected the keyboard to my computer, and checked it. It was slightly loose. I pushed it in firmly, and checked again. Still no keyboard. I told Dad what happened. He came to look at it. I took a bathroom break to calm down. (No, I was no calm. {half-smile}) When I came back out, Dad said he'd turned off my computer, waited for a bit, and turned it back on. It seemed to work after that. {bite lips}

It has continued to work since then. {bite lips} However, with the repair technician at The Computer Store's words about viruses, I've been watching it very carefully for further stunts. I hope it's working now, but I don't trust it, even after over a day. {small smile}

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Remind me never to travel to Io. Between the volcanoes spewing all kinds of dangerously heating and poisonous substances around and the tidal forces warping the very rock 100's of feet, I can't imagine anyone wanting to go there. I might be underestimating a few daredevils, but any who do want to go are not in their right mind as far as I'm concerned! {Lopsided Smile}

Friday, August 15, 2008

I recently got a coffee table book, The World of the Dark Crystal byBrian Froud. It tells about the background of the movie The DarkCrystal. I really enjoyed it, and not just because I have a weaknessfor coffee table books. It starts with the history of how Brian Froud, theconcept artist, and Jim Henson, then head of the Muppets got together, cameup with the idea, and turned the idea into a movie. {Smile} They don't gointo a lot of detail, but they give a general idea.

I don't mind the lack of detail on that because the rest of the bookcovers the history of the world the movie is set in. You get some glimpses of this history in the movie, but this book gives a clearer view. {Smile} It lets me glimpse other stories that happened earlier, and maybe what came just after. {smile} Those are fun to think about when I'm daydreaming. {SMILE}

I enjoyed the book, obviously. I finished it in a little under a week, which is doing pretty good these days. {SMILE}

Thursday, August 14, 2008

In the Lord of the Rings, the king has gotten married, and everyone is ready to go home at last. {Smile}

I've been kind of stuck there for about a week. I got a coffee table book, The World of the Dark Crystal by Brian Froud, and immediately started to look it over. It's about the background of the movie The Dark Crystal. That is really nice, and not just because I have a weakness for coffee table books. I'll have to write that one up soon; I finished it in less than a week. Reading it while soaking my toe helped, but I read it at other times, too. {SMILE}

After that I expected to get back to The Lord of the Rings. This shows I don't always know my own mind. {Smile} Instead, I picked up The Hazards of Space Travel. This covers hazards astronauts and space tourists can reasonably expect as they travel out into our solar system. It includes historical incidents astronauts have contended with, as well as ones they're likely to encounter but haven't yet. {small smile} I just finished a chapter on air. It started with a (fictional) account of a traveler whose friend's oxygen got switched off, and how the traveler saved his friend by turning it back on. The book then explained the need for a proper amount of oxygen. It mentioned the hazards of having too much, including the Apollo 1 fire that burned so fast no one survived, even tho they were just testing the capsule on earth. They mentioned an incident where a Cosmonaut's suit got over inflated during a space walk, and he had great difficulty getting back into his space craft at the end. They also mentioned the problem of getting the bends from switching between our oxygen-nitrogen* atmosphere and the pure oxygen atmospheres in modern space suits too quickly. The book says they're currently trying to develop hard space suits that will allow an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere without risk of over-inflation. That does sound like an improvement! {SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

* Oops; carbon dioxide is a trace element in our atmosphere, so I removed it. {Smile}

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

I've been trying to think how to give an overview of A Thousand Words for Stranger. It isn't easy. In fact, it's a very difficult book to give a book-talk on. {Smile}

The book begins in the rain on a street on a backwater planet named Auord. The avian alien 'Whix and his human partner are on a stakeout, watching a couple of members of the humanoid Clan, an alien race that doesn't belong to the Trade Pact like the humans, 'Whix's people, and most others they know of. While they are watching, the two Clan members - a man and a gal - are attacked by native Auordians. The attackers are killed, the man taken in for questioning... and the gal disappears in the confusion.

That's the prelude. Chapter 1 begins in a dirty back alley, where a single protagonist cannot remember a thing: not name, nor sex, nor whether the world existed five minutes before. Tho they do know they're on the planet Auord, because that pops up in odd compulsions telling this person to get off Auord and stay safe.

{pause} Describing what this character discovers later would ruin the sense of bewildered mystery at this point. I don't really want to do that, so this is as much as I can say about the story. {smile}

I can say one thing that won't spoil that feeling. I was particularly impressed with the way the aliens who turn up really feel alien. They don't feel like talking lions or Scots with funny hair; they feel like unique aliens. Yet there's more than one kind of alien like this; usually when I see aliens, they either correspond closely to not-so-alien people or creatures, or else there's only one other race. In this book we meet a few races well-enough developed, we realize they aren't something familiar pretending to be aliens. The closest to that would be 'Whix, who seems to be bird-like; yet he's not a raptor, nor a song bird, nor a chicken or a duck... he's a type of bird I've never heard of, and not just because he's as intelligent as a human. {Smile}

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Sarah, Plain and Tall is a slim book I found in the children's section years ago. However, it's really a book for adults told in simple language that people still learning how to read English can handle. There's nothing to make you blanch if a kid does find it, but most kids will be bored by this simple, somewhat delicate tale. {Smile}

I recently reread it after recommending it to a friend of the family who's teaching "advanced beginners" English as a second language. She loves it, and so do her students. {Smile}

It is told from the view point of Anna, a girl who lives with her little brother, Caleb, and their Papa on a farm on rolling plains in inland America. (Their mother died just after Caleb was born.) However, it is really the story of Sarah, who answers a personal ad Papa put out when he decided he needed a wife. They each write to her, and she answers back. Then she comes to see what they and their home are like. She's from the coast of Maine. She finds that people talk funny, saying "yes" when they mean "ayup." Plus, there's no dunes, no sand, no shore, and no sea. Instead, there's lots of grass, and farm animals, and Anna and Caleb and their Papa. {pause} Sarah particularly misses the sea. Since the children really like her, they are afraid she will go back to Maine.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

The bees are back, unless they're still here. We suspect the latter. We only spotted them twice, but the second spotting involved three black bees who acted very much at home. {half-smile}

Moving to happier news, I recently finished A Thousand Words for Stranger. I liked it. That was an interesting complex of problems. Plus I liked seeing more than one alien who didn't seem like a copy of either an animal species or a human culture. {Smile} I'll have to start on the second book of the trilogy fairly soon. {Smile}

I also read Sarah Plain and Tall recently. A friend of the family was complaining about a lack of decent texts for her new class. When she said it was an English as a Second Language class, and they were "advanced beginners," I thought of Sarah immediately. It's easy reading, but it's really more interesting to adults than to children. {Smile} (No, there's nothing to make you blanch if a kid does find it. {GRIN}) Well, she said they loved it, and she clearly did, too. Then Dad decided to check it out, and he liked it. {SMILE} So of course I had to re-read it myself. {BIG SMILE}

Friday, June 13, 2008

A day or two after I wrote about the termites and bees, I did spot anotherbee at our woodpile. But that might be the last one we've seen. Mom has beenwatching the woodpile from the laundry room every time she does the laundry,and she hasn't spotted on in over a week. {hopeful smile}

Mom thinks they might have moved to a neighbor's unused woodpile. That'sjust enough further away, we're very relieved. If the bees have really left,we can now burn all the termite-y wood without getting stung. {SMILE}

Our carpenter bees really are quite gentle, but if they're ever going tosting, it's when someone is trying to burn up their home. Hopefully, wewon't have to worry about that now. {Smile, cross fingers}

Sunday, June 1, 2008

We have a problem in our woodpile. It has termites. So we need to get rid of the whole thing, and it's pretty big. Mom and Dad decided that they don't want to throw it across the street into the swamp; it's far too close to our house. They don't want to take it all to the dump, either. The dump is across town, and the woodpile would be several loads worth. With gas already over $4 a gallon here, they'd rather avoid that if possible. {half-smile} They don't want to heat up the house by burning it in the inside fireplace; not in the summer heat. So Dad has begun burning the kindling in the little outside fireplace where the barbeques dinner at times. {smile}

There was just one problem: whenever he did that, he heard angry buzzing from a carpenter bee behind by the woodpile. One seemed to be living in the woodpile, and she didn't like us disturbing her nice home. They're generally gentle bees, but we're disturbing her home... Dad decided to kill her before she attacked us for disturbing her home. Besides, the hole one makes in wood to make a home is an excellent starting place for termites. It's too late for this woodpile, but we don't want too many around. {wry smile}

So anyway, Dad decided to get rid of the carpenter bee before he got to that part of the woodpile. He went out two evenings ago, and sprayed the hole he found in the end of one log. When we checked yesterday, we found more bees - at least two females and a male - and at least nine other holes. Dad went out last night, and sprayed all the holes he saw, using almost all the wasp killer we have.

We checked today. Mom saw one bee, then she saw two bees, both kind of going around behind something, like their holes were back where Dad hadn't looked. I only saw one bee doing that, but she swerved in about a foot away from me, doing a convincing enough portrayal of an angry bee to convince me to go back inside the house. I didn't want her to start bumping me aggressively, let alone stinging! They're big!

Now Dad is thinking about what to do next. I hope he thinks of something soon! {odd smile}

Monday, May 26, 2008

Well, I think it's time to try out the new picture mailing lists, including the one that refers to this blog. I thought I'd start with a picture of a mu'umu'u I made for myself I got it into wearable condition several years ago. I wasn't really happy with it until I tacked down enough of the lace to keep it from curling, and added a couple of lace medallions on the pockets. So it was completely finished after one I made in the meantime. {Smile}

This picture is of me wearing it when I was finally happy with how it looks. {SMILE} You might have to click on it to see the full picture; Blogger seems to like to cut off one edge. I do need to figure out how to deal with that. {smile}

Sunday, May 18, 2008

I don't know that I expect any answer but the one I give myself. {smile} However, I've been asking myself that a lot. I think the answer might be tied into my recent bout of writer's block. That's eased, but... I still need to work on it. {smile}

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Sam and Frodo are having an awful lot of trouble with a humongous, hairy spider.

{Smile} Yes, my reading is coming along. It hasn't been going quickly, but it is progressing. {Smile}

{bite lips}

I just wish I could say the same for my writing. I got both moving nicely during Lent. Since then, the reading slowed, and the writing stalled pretty completely. {small smile} I'm going to have to figure out some way to break this bout of writer's block. {pause} I just wish I knew what would work. {smile}

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Well, I guess it's official. Mom and I have joined the Hilo Woman's Club's We Care Teddy Bear Club. {Smile} We attended our first meeting this morning. Mom was going to drive us down. However, her car wouldn't start. So Dad drove us down. He dropped us off, and we tried to get in. There were two garages right in front, side by side. However, Mom spotted a gate to oneside, so she went thru it. It went to a back porch. Nobody was obvious, but there were lots of stairs. So I went back to the driveway. I spotted Dad driving past, so I waved to him, and explained we were having a little trouble finding anyone. He offered to come back and wait for us, just incase. Shortly before he did, Mom waved to me. So I told Dad we were okay. Mom led me down a long, narrow path between the garages, and up two steps, and another, and another, into the house. They didn't even have railings, but I managed; my balance is doing better these days, and there was a convenient post I could hang onto by the two steps. {Smile}

Once inside, there were no more steps between the entrance and the dining room. So we sat around the dining room table, and started talking. Then we started tying bows on stuffed animals while we continued to talk. It was just Mom, the club president, and me. I wondered a bit, but continued to tie bows. Then the president wanted to show us some of the other animals. We debated. I'm not that good at stairs, but I did want to see the animals. I eventually decided to try it. She led us over to the stairs, which we'd passed on the way in. They were steeper than usual, but they had good, sturdy railings. So we tried it, and it worked. She went up, and took us into a room where she had more animals some school kids had fixed up. She said she had even more in another room. I wanted to see them while I was up there, but she didn't want to fix them up first, since they weren't even washed. So we went back down. I found the steps were steep enough, I couldn'twalk down forwards. I had to face backwards and find the next step mostly by feel. That did work; I didn't have to sit down and lower myself step by step like a two-year-old. However, I'm not going up those steps again, no matter how many animals she has to show me while I'm there.

Back downstairs, we continued to talk. The president continued to tie bows. Mom found a dog who needed some shout, and a frog who had some things taken off her. I found a dog whose nose was half off, and a brand new bunny who needed her tags snipped off and her tail sewed back on. I was working on the bunny when Dad showed up to pick us up. The president invited him inside, and we asked him to tie a necktie on this one animal. None of us could remember how, and Mom felt a few animals should have more masculine decorations. {SMILE} So Dad sat and tied neckties. Mom finished the frog and started on more bows. The president did more bows, too, and I finished fixing the rabbit's tail. {Smile}

Then Dad took us home. Mom went inside for a few things, then went back out as Dad got out the jumper cables, and prepared to fix Mom's car. Just before he connected them, he told Mom to try to start her car one last time.

It started easily, tho it made a funny noise. Mom drove down tot the service station to ask them what was happening with her car. They ran a few tests, and decided the alternator was fine, but the battery was weak. So now Mom has a new battery just like Dad's. {Smile}

If you're wondering what the Hilo Woman's Club's We Care Teddy Bear Club does with all those stuffed animals, we give them away to "children and adults who need a hug." The club started by giving them to the police to keep in their cars, so they have one when they meet a kid who needs comfort in the course of their work. The club got many, many more bears than the police here can use. So the club has branched out to underprivileged children, fire trucks, nursing homes, domestic violence help centers, adult day care, doctor's offices, and giving them to other charities for prizes and such. The president even gave some away as Halloween favors last year. She hadn't thought of many of these options yet, and she felt her house was so full of bears and other stuffed animals, she has to do something! {Smile} If it's still full enough of animals, she'll probably do that again this year. {SMILE}

The one place we don't give them to is the hospital. They insist the animals would need to be sterilized, and that's beyond our cleaning skills. {lop-sided smile}

Friday, April 25, 2008

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: Frodo, Sam, and Gollum have left Faramir and are heading towards Minas Morgul. They've stopped to hide for the day, but the day isn't getting lighter.

A Thousand Words for Stranger by Julie E. Czerneda: In this one, it's harder to describe where I am. {smile} Sira has landed on a strange planet with Jason. (They were separated from Huido because he's big enough to need his own escape pod.) Then she got separated from Jason. Worried he'll be in more danger with her than separate, she didn't want to go back. So she called Rael, who she doesn't remember thru her amnesia, but who knows her well. Rael who teleported in and fed Sira after saying the line that gave the book it's title: " Rael left again when some of Sira's news upset her.

"The Color of Plants on Other Worlds" in Scientific American April 2008: It's a non-fiction article about the various photosynthetic compounds found on earth, and how they use the energy they're getting from the sun. It also speculates how this might be different around other stars, especially how it might affect what the plants would look like. {Smile} I find it absolutely fascinating. {SMILE}

I was thinking about what we talk about when we don't have much to talk about. I know the weather is traditional, but my parents and I rarely bring it up unless it affects what we're planning to do. {smile} Instead, we talk about what we're reading.

We'll ask each other "What are you reading?" "Where are you in the story?" or "What's happening?" and we'll listen to the answers.Even without questions, we talk about it. Dad will say "Gollum is leading Frodo and Sam thru the marshes." Or he'll say "Rammage just captured a pirate ship." Or "Piemur is at a gather, and just stole some pies." {SMILE}

We ask and talk about this even if we haven't read the book. I have read Anne McCaffrey's Pern; it and Darkover are the two series all three of us are quite interested in. However, Dad was telling me where he was in The Lord of the Rings two decades before I read it. He tells me about Rammage, and I still haven't gotten into that series. We have enough overlap in reading tastes, the stories often sound interesting. We might read it eventually... maybe we'll even read it soon. {Smile} And if not... it's still more interesting than the weather most of the time. {Chuckle, SMILE}

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Well, I wanted to have a place where I could share pictures with friends and family I mainly email, but that won't account for many posts. I'm sure I'll find a few other uses for this blog as I go along. I hate to limit myself too much. {Smile}